Why were the Irish so dependent on potatoes as a staple food at the time of the Great Famine? Why couldn’t they just have turned to other grains as an alternative to stop more deaths from happening?
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The English already saw Ireland as a starving nation when they took it over, and the Napoleonic Wars led to an even higher demand to steal Ireland’s food. The English shoved them off into some corner and took all the good land with its wheat and corn for themselves. The Irish had only small fields of poor soil to feed themselves with, and the only crop that did well enough to survive off of was potatoes – they’re very space-efficient and much more tolerant of poor soil and other conditions than other plants.
The Famine *might* have been less devastating had there been more variety *of* potatoes, but they were pretty much all the same cultivar (Irish Lumper).
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